Fire and Justice_A Legal Thriller

by Peter O'Mahoney

  Avoiding eye contact, Bill doesn’t respond.

  He knows she’s right.

  She usually is.

  “You have to go back there and talk to him. Without you, they’ll tear him apart. He’ll go to prison for the rest of his life. Without you, he hasn’t got a chance. Is that what you want?”

  “I’m too emotionally involved. I’m not the right person for this case. I’m—”

  “Yes, you are the right person for this case. You’ve wanted this for a long time. You’ve wanted your chance to talk to your brother again, and you weren’t sure whether that dream would ever come true. All that guilt that you felt, all that pain, won’t go away unless you confront it. You have to go back there and talk to him.”

  Bill takes a long sip of the whiskey, the liquor warming his chest, raising his body temperature.

  “Maybe you’re right,” he concedes.

  “Of course, I’m right,” Kate responds. “So when are you going back?”

  “Not yet.” Bill looks reflectively at the glass of whiskey. “But soon.”

  Chapter 11

  Still under the slight buzz of whiskey, Bill Harvey walks back through the Metropolitan Detention Center, this time at a slower pace, and without Kate chasing him.

  With the benefit of time, he has had the chance to research the case, in particular, his brother’s history. Going under the name Jonathon Fredrick, he was arrested twice in Florida for drug offenses and once in New York for assault.

  Not a good start.

  Over the years, Bill looked for any trace of Jonathon, the odd Google search, a look through the pages of deceased persons, a search through the name databases here and there. Jonathon Harvey never returned any results, and now he understands why.

  It appeared that his brother had flipped from state to state, even country to country, never settling in one place for a long time. Arizona, Texas, Montana, Utah, Mexico, Panama – it appears that he was quite fond of traveling, or at least, escaping.

  With a deep breath, Bill’s hand rests on the door to the meeting room where he stood only hours ago.

  Slowly, he clicks the door open.

  “Bill?” Waiting patiently behind the desk, Jonathon stands to greet his older brother for the second time today.

  “For this morning, I just want to say—”

  “No.” His voice is gruff. “I won’t hear that.”

  “I know this is hard, but I have something to say, and you have to listen to it.”

  Bill closes his eyes, knowing that if he avoids it now, he’s only going to have to face the conversation further down the track.

  This is not something he can keep avoiding.

  “Go on.” Cautiously, he places his briefcase on the small desk and sits down on the cold metal chair, keeping his eyes focused on the table.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Bill waits for something more, but nothing else comes. “Is that it?”

  “I’m sorry about so many things. I’m sorry about what I did, I’m sorry how I treated you and the family, I’m sorry that I didn’t call you earlier, and I’m sorry that we had to meet like this. So yes, ‘I’m sorry’ just about covers it all.”

  Bill didn’t expect that.

  He expected a great long speech about past sins, about life, love, and mistakes.

  But Jonathon is also a Harvey man, and thus he was taught that emotions are to be avoided at all costs.

  “For what it’s worth.” Bill draws a deep breath. “I’m sorry as well.”

  A moment of eye contact, of a life passed by.

  “Let’s get into it then.” Jonathon claps his hands. “Let’s start the work. I didn’t do it, so let’s solve this thing and get me out of here.”

  The smile broadens on Bill’s face.

  There is no doubt that this man is his brother.

  “You’ve been charged with the first-degree murder of Gerard West.” Bill removes the police file from his briefcase. “First things first, did you know this man, Gerard West?” Bill slides a photo of Gerard West across the table.

  “Never seen his face before yesterday.” Jonathon shakes his head. “Never talked to him.”

  “The police report states that on October 22, at just after 11:00 pm, you strangled the deceased in an alley off Boyd St in Skid Row. You spend a lot of time in Skid Row?”

  “I have an apartment in Skid Row. It’s not great, and it’s not a good area, but it’s all I can afford at the moment. Not too many people are willing to employ an ex-con, and the rent there is cheap. If you avoid the right streets, then it’s not too bad.”

  Understanding, Bill nods. “He was wearing your jacket with your DNA all over it. There is also video footage of you around the area at the time of death. They also have witnesses that place you at the scene of the crime.”

  “That doesn’t mean I did it.”

  “No, but it certainly makes you a prime suspect,” Bill retorts. “What were you doing at 11:00 pm on Tuesday?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You must have been doing something.”

  “Alright.” Jonathon rubs his hand over his face, ashamed of his checkered past. “I was walking around that night. I felt like I needed another hit, but—”

  “A hit of what?”

  Jonathon looks away from his brother, desperate to avoid eye contact. “Heroin.” He sighs. “But I’ve been clean fourteen months now, Bill. It’s been great. Amazing. But every now and again, I get an urge. The urge to have another hit. It overwhelms me, like I can do nothing else until I get it. My bones ache, my body sweats, and my mind is all fuzzy. It’s hell, man. The urges are getting less and less, but I still get them. The best way for me to deal with it is to go somewhere and get away from it all. I have to get out of that tiny little apartment that I live in or the desire just gets stronger and stronger. So I was walking the streets.”

  “Was anyone with you?”

  “A man named David Whaler.”

  “David Whaler? Tall guy, black hair?”

  “Yeah. That’s him. He’s an ex-addict like me. I called him because I needed the support. That’s what support groups are for. When you feel like you can’t handle it anymore, you call someone. David has always been good to me.” Jonathon runs his hand through his brown hair. “We were walking around for a while, just wandering, and then we had a coffee at the diner, and after that, I felt alright, so we hugged and then said our goodbyes.”

  “This guy?” Bill brings up a Facebook photo on his phone of the man he spent months defending.

  “That’s him.” Jonathon nods. “How do you know him?”

  “I defended him against a similar murder charge twelve months ago. David was innocent, and we got him off because we were able to establish an alibi at the time of death. We found security footage of him at a bar at the time of death which proved that he wasn’t responsible.”

  “I don’t know anything about that, but I can tell you this – he’s a good man, with a good heart. A solid person. He’s one of the seniors in the recovery support group. And he’s always been there for me when I have needed a hug.”

  “Is that something the support group taught you?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Hugging.”

  Jonathon scoffs, remembering who he is dealing with. “Hugging is amazing, Bill. I know our family was never huggers, but it makes you feel connected to someone. There’s something about the touch, the bond, that people share when they hug. It means something, but I guess by the tone of that question, you hug people about as much as our father did… which is never.”

  “I guess so.” Bill looks at his hands. They are the same as his fathers. Every time he looks at them, he sees his hardworking father. “What happened after you had a nice little hug and said goodbye?”

  “I walked home.”

  “Which way?”

  “Past the alley on Boyd St. I had walked about ten minutes, then I realized that I had left my jacket at the diner, so I went back
for it, but someone had already taken it. Happens a lot around there. If you leave something on the ground for a couple seconds, it’s gone. So I wasn’t surprised that my jacket had disappeared. When I got back to the diner, I asked at the counter, and they said they saw some guy come in and take it. I guess it was Gerard West.”

  “Would you kill for that jacket?”

  “No,” he snaps. “I didn’t kill him, Bill. I’ve never killed anyone. I wouldn’t be able to that; it’s just not in me to kill someone. That’s too far, even for me. I’ve seen death before, but I could never be a part of it.”

  The defense lawyer is wary of his younger brother.

  Despite the bond between them, despite the shared blood, this is a man that he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know if Jonathon is a habitual liar, he doesn’t know if he has faced this situation in the past, he doesn’t even know if Jonathon is capable of telling the truth.

  Usually, Bill would rely on his skills to determine if someone is lying. When he first moved to Los Angeles, he spent ten years working as a hypnotherapist, helping people overcome one addiction or another. His ability to read people, even the slightest movement of the eyes, meant that he was successful at everything he touched. From the movements of the body, he would know if somebody was lying, if they were hiding their past, or if they were avoiding their future. As a criminal attorney, those skills have helped him more times than he cares to count.

  But this time, he has a problem – emotions are clouding his judgment.

  And he doesn’t like that one bit.

  “Do you know where David went after he left you?”

  “No.” Jonathon shakes his head. “Why so many questions, Bill? All this is in the police report. I have already told this police all this information. I sat in that interview for hours and went through all this. It’s all in the report.”

  “What I need is to build a full picture of the crime. I need to know every little detail of what happened. I need to know the weather, the way the wind blew, the history of every person involved, the clothes the person wore, the graffiti on the wall of the alley – everything. Because it’s in the small details that we will find our solution. The police have looked at the big details and concluded that you committed the murder. If we only look at the big details, we will come to the same conclusion, and you will spend the rest of your life behind bars. Your possible innocence lies in the small details; in something that everyone else has missed. That’s why I’m asking all the questions.”

  “Alright.” Jonathon sighs. “I understand. It’s just… I’ve answered a lot of questions lately. I don’t know how much more of this I can take.”

  “I would like you to take me through what happened again, in your own words.”

  “Again?” Jonathon doesn’t want to seem ungrateful, but the days locked up in prison, just when his life was getting back on track, has brought him to the end of his nerves.

  His patience is well past its use-by date.

  “Jonathon, we have a murdered body in an alley. If you didn’t do it, somebody else did. As you have no alibi, finding that person may be the best way to prove your innocence. That’s where we will start, because if we take the case as it is now to the courtroom, there’s a very strong chance that the jury will see it the same way the police see it. We can fight for your innocence, and we may win, but we may not. Or we can prove that someone else did it, and not have to fight at all.”

  “You really think I’m innocent?”

  “Are you?” Bill stares at the man with searching eyes.

  “Yes.” Jonathon doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t break eye contact.

  He is either as skilled as his brother in manipulation, or he’s being truthful.

  Bill hasn’t decided which one yet.

  “Good. Then take me through what happened for the rest of that night.”

  “After we—”

  “Who?”

  “But we’ve been through this?” Jonathon pleads.

  Bill doesn’t respond, instead staring coldly at Jonathon, waiting for him to continue.

  “Ok, if you think it will help.” Jonathon sighs. “After we, David and I, said goodbye, I went back to the diner, asked for my jacket and was told that it was already taken. Then, disappointed that I had lost the jacket, I walked home to my apartment, watched some late-night television, and then went to bed. That’s it. That’s all there is to it. That’s my entire night in a nutshell.”

  Bill draws a long breath. “So what we have is two witnesses saying that they saw you, from across the street in the dark, enter the alley about thirty minutes before the time of death. We have your jacket on the deceased, and we have footage of you in the area. You’re big enough, and strong enough, to strangle a man to death. At the moment, it’s all adding up that you’re guilty.”

  “Like I said, the dead guy probably took my jacket after I left it at the diner,” Jonathon argues. “I went past the alley as I was walking. Innocently. Completely innocently. Walking is not a crime. It’s not an offense to walk past an alley. I’ve done nothing wrong.”

  “Would you have noticed if Gerard was at the diner when you went back to retrieve your jacket?”

  “Probably not.”

  “I’ll check the security footage for the diner.”

  “There’s no use. It doesn’t work. I asked after I went back for my jacket, and they said it didn’t work. Places like that can’t afford security. Places in Skid Row don’t have much security apart from the metal bars on the windows.”

  “Is there anything else that you remember about that night that may be able to help us?”

  Jonathon shrugs. “No. Not really.”

  “Not really or no?”

  “No.”

  Bill scribbles notes on his pad, not sure where to go next. Once he has worked out every possible avenue in his head, he continues.

  “I see that you’ve had some run-ins with the law over the years.”

  “I’m not proud of my past, but it happened. There is no denying that I did some really bad things and generally, I was a really bad person. Really bad. And once you’re labeled a con, nobody wants to employ you. You’ve got to survive somehow, and a lot of the time the only option I had left was steal something. You’ve got to find money somehow.”

  “To fund your drug habit?”

  Jonathon pauses, mouth open. “I said I was sorry, Bill. I know my addiction was horrible for everyone. I know that I hurt our family. I know that I tore our family apart. I know that I really hurt…” He gulps. “I know that I really hurt Mom and Dad. I know that. That was my fault. I take full responsibility for that. It’s part of my recovery to take full responsibility for my actions. I’m sorry that it happened, but there’s nothing I can do to change it now.”

  “Thank you for taking responsibility.”

  Jonathon pauses for a few long moments before thinning his eyes. “Do you want me behind bars? Is that what you want? To punish me for what I did? Your chance at revenge?”

  “No.” Bill is firm. “I forgave you a long time ago, Jonathon. I’m here to help you.”

  “I really regret what I did to our family, but I’m at peace with it. It was my fault, and I made all the mistakes. But I’ve found God now, and I have asked Him for forgiveness. I’ve asked Him to forgive my past, and if you can’t, that’s ok. I’m at peace with myself, and with the Lord.”

  “You weren’t at their funerals.” The bold statement comes out of Bill’s mouth without rhyme or reason. Without thought.

  The sudden turn in conversation catches Jonathon off guard.

  “I…” he stammers, his eyes directed down at the table. “I didn’t think I would have been welcomed at Mom or Dad’s funeral. When I got clean, one of the first things that I did was go and visit their graves. I said sorry to them. I prayed for them. I never meant to put them through that. It was my fault, and one of my greatest regrets. I’m sorry.”

  The cold silence sits over the room as the brothers make eye
contact.

  “How’s Ella?” Jonathon breaks the hush.

  Bill looks down at his notepad, knowing how much pain their youngest sibling, Ella, has been through. She experienced the full ride of emotions – mostly settling in the darkness of depression for her early twenties. After the death of their parents, Ella became lost in her own world, unable to deal with being alone. It took her years to recover, and Bill is unsure of how she will take the news that their long-lost brother wants back in their lives.

  “She’s not as forgiving as me. She wanted to forget about you, and that time in her life tore her apart. She went on the full ride of emotions, and she blamed herself for a lot of what happened. None of it was her fault, but that was the easiest way for her to deal with it.”

  “Is she well now?”

  “Most of the time, yes. She has her ups and downs, but most of the time she is good.”

  Jonathon nods.

  Again, the silence sits over them, almost smothering them. The wave of emotion threatens to drown them, but as robust men, they resist.

  After many minutes of awkward silence, Bill draws another long breath, drums his fingers on the table, and stands to leave. “We’ll sort this out, Jonathon. One way or another, we’ll sort this out.”

  Chapter 12

  “Detective.”

  “Bill.”

  “Always a pleasure.”

  “Likewise.”

  The blunt greeting between Detective Matthew Pitt and criminal defense attorney Bill Harvey is matched by the usual equally curt handshake.

  However, this time, ever tentatively, Bill draws in for a half-hug, while still holding Pitt’s handshake, but Pitt draws back, surprised by the change in greeting. Awkwardly, Pitt realizes what his friend has done, and draws him back into the uncomfortable hug. They pat each other on the back solidly, showing off their machoism.

  “That’s…” Pitt is confused. “That’s a different greeting.”